


From the Old Worlds Demise (Here We Are)

by AtmosphericDisruption



Category: Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), LOVECRAFT H. P. - Works
Genre: 1800's tomfoolery, Character(s) of Color, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Miskatonic University, Multi, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, The Eldritch addition to this fandom, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-01-09 05:12:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12269583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtmosphericDisruption/pseuds/AtmosphericDisruption
Summary: This is why one shouldn't bring work home.The Graves Home is very much Haunted, but they really could care less. It added character and kept the unsavory relations at bay and isn't that what a haunting is for?The Fantastic Beasts/Lovecraft/BPRD AU no one asked for featuring the Mr. & Mrs. Graves and the wee baby Percy.





	1. Chapter 1

It started when Percival was a babe. Doors slamming without provocation, coffee cups throwing themselves onto the wide planked wooden floors, and milk curdling in the stasis cupboard. But this was a magical household and these things were given little consideration. House ghosts were restless creatures after all, especially when a new member of the family disrupted their hauntings. Enoch laughed heartily when a particularly ugly painting of an english garden burst into flames in the sitting room while he danced around with a babbling Percy in his arms. It had been a gift from a work acquaintance, and as such he had never been able to throw it away. 

Time passed, more food rotted, or inexplicably ended up in strange places. The kitchen drawers rattled out their contents onto the floor, leaving a tutting Gwynevere clean up the mess with a flick of her wand. Sometimes the walls oozed thick black ichor that smelled of rich black cherries and ozone. And sometimes they’d wake up to babe dusted with the bright yellow of pollen, sticky and sweet smelling, while fat fuzzy bumblebees lazily buzzed around the fascinated child. 

Not a ghost them. Still, the Graves were hardly perturbed. Given their line of work it was not surprising that one them had brought something back home. 

The cellar was always just the wrong side of damp, it smelled of moss and wet stone and even the brightest lumos couldn’t completely penetrate the dark. And there were times when Enoch was certain the trip down the creaking steps took longer than it should have. Gwyn thought the whole thing was delightful and would come back from getting a jar of peaches with bottles of wine, trinkets, and toys covered in dust and grime from years of languishing Merlin knows where. 

It was in the quiet hours of dawn or in the fading of twilight that the house seemed to come alive, vibrating with what seemed to be excitement or leading them around in circles until asked politely to stop. They were aware of the way sunlight shimmers strangely and how the shadows were a bit too dark and creep into places they shouldn’t with curious tendrils of inky black. Still, they were hardly perturbed. 

They get a dog for Percy’s first birthday.

It would be more accurate to say that the damn thing followed Gwyn home from a mission in the highlands of Scotland. How the Cù-Sìth managed to sneak it’s way across the pond they will never know, but it settles into the house as if it’s always been there, the spots claims as it’s own blossoming with moss, tiny purple flowers, and mushrooms. 

Percy has decided Potato is a perfectly acceptable name. 

The constant supply of the fungus a plus Enoch muses aloud as he slides an omelet onto his wife's plate. The tea pot slides off the sideboard and crashes to the floor in a tinkering of china. Percy shrieks in delight.


	2. A perfectly mundane day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which laws are broken and Percy continues to be tiny and adorable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please excuse the questionable welsh accent. I'm trying.

They do things the mundane way sometimes even at the crack of dawn. Gwyn enjoyed the exercise that came with chopping wood and Enoch would be lying if he didn't find the way she handled an ax invigorating. He puttered around the yard with a sleeping Percy on his back as he tended to the livestock and fed the chickens, stealing glances at the play of her muscles under porcelain skin generously kissed with freckles. 

The rich black earth was teeming with worms and they both spent more time trying to stuff worms down each others shirts than weeding the vegetable patch. Even with their lack of serious effort they crops they manage to produce far outshine anything they’ve seen without the deliberate addition of magic. The cabbages are larger than an ox head, the carrots are such a dark purple they are nearly black, and the tomatoes….Enoch doesn’t even remember planting tomatoes but they grow in abundance, a vibrate patchwork of reds, greens, and yellows. The rest of their produce blooms with a similar vitality and in quantities that prove to be too much for even their appetites. They’ll take the excesses to sell and trade in the town market. 

If his father could see him now….

Enoch dismissed the thought as soon as it had come. The man was dead to him in everything but name and Enoch considered that to be too much. The magics that governed his families line of succession had refused to acknowledge his “stepmother” and her children as more than a secondary family branch much to the woman's never ending consternation. It would have been hilarious except for the fact that it forced him to keep in contact with the Head Graves. Gwyn naturally found the drama to be the height of entertainment, her own family situation only complicated by her own father's inability to stand the presence of iron and somewhat disturbing taste for disembowelment and trickery. It had made the wedding....memorable. 

Percy was suitably entertained by the emerald garter snake that slithered out of the tool shed if his cooing is anything to go by. They take a break from playing in the dirt and Gwyn feeds her boys juicy raspberries she’s battled the prickly bush for and sun warmed strawberries while she hoards crisp green apples for herself. The garter snake pokes its head out of the mess Percy’s made of his blankets and Gwyn scratches it under the chin. 

While they picnic the inner wards that encircle their property thrum and chime pleasantly as they are tentatively tested. There’s no ill intent in the prodding, so the defensive measures remain dormant even as the chiming becomes more frequent, changing in tone and depth as whatever it is amuses itself with the noise. Gwyn exchanges looks with her husband and a few flicks of their wands has their produce harvested and settled neatly in baskets.

Enoch shows off his physique by carrying four baskets full of produce over the threshold. He trips over one of Percy’s blocks and Gwyn cackles as her husband rolls over dazedly looking up at the ceiling. The floor moans loudly as if in protest and sags under him. First his wife, and then his house. Potato trots over and flops down onto his chest with a content huff. He’s surrounded by traitors.

After stowing the food away in the pantry, they collect their spawn from his blankets and the butterflies that swarm around him like he’s a particularly tasty flower. He’s strapped into his cradleboard, a gift from Enoch’s mother, with minimal fuss and he’s slung onto his father’s back for a trip into town. The butterflies follow after, Percy giggling as their gossamer wings brush against his cheek and their tiny pollen covered feet comb through his hair. 

There’s a hulking dark shape watching them from a copse of birch trees a few yards outside of the wards. Gwyn’s hand clutches her husbands, her wand drawn and at the ready. His own is held loosely at his side as they pass through the wards and onto dear trail that leads to the well worn path into town. There's an near impenetrable darkness surrounding the being despite it being midday and though neither of them can see if it has eyes, they can feel its gaze. 

The woods are unnaturally silent and still as they walk, the only sound being Percy’s tuneless humming and the crunch of fallen leaves under their feet. Their nearest neighbour is seven miles east and the mundane town is ten miles to the south. The chiming starts up again and Gwyn glances over her shoulder, watching as their wards ripple like the surface of a pond. Whatever it is doesn’t seem all that interested in anything but making music.

A whispered word activates the enchantment woven into their boots and each step they take is like a hundred. It’s certainly not the fastest method of travel, but apparating with a child is a hell of its own. Several butterflies have settled in Gwyn’s hair, their deep blue wings a pleasant contrast to her curly white hair. Purple Emperor. The name comes unbidden to his mind and Enoch suppresses a deep sigh. One of them lands on his nose and refuses to find another perch despite his gentle instance. 

This is getting ridiculous.

They deactivate their boots just before they reach the town. Gwyn’s wand disappears into her holster and she loops her arm through his, leading him down the main street. The town was painfully mundane and small enough to escape MACUSA’s notice. It’s got all the normal things that keep a small settlement like this running. There’s a town hall, and boarding house with freshly painted wooden clapboards. A doctor's office which housed the apothecary and barber and across the dirt street was the the general store. The blacksmiths and tanners was adjacent to the church, which held a place of honour at the end of the street and as the tallest building in town. 

There’s something about the stark white steeple rising above the trees that sends shivers down their spines that has nothing to do with the history of witch burning and false accusations. The church bell tolls the hour and the sound is empty, a facsimile of the warm tones produced by the great cathedrals of Europe and back east. They give the church a wide berth. 

Gwyn peels her eyes away from the gold cross that tops the steeple and tugs her boys into the cool darkness if the general store. It’s dark and slightly dusty despite the shopkeepers constant cleaning. The smell of spices and cured meats mixes with the sharp scent of newly minted nails and cured leather. The walls are lined with glass jars and barrels and sacks of dry goods are stacked as neatly as possible around the store. Furs, leathers, and ropes of various make and width hang from the rafters and there's even a coil of barbed wire that gleams dully in the bit of sunlight that filters through the shops cluttered windows. 

They buy pounds of flour, salt, sugar, and cornmeal first, Enoch carefully counting out the coins and before diving up the leftovers to spend as they wished. Kind of. Gwyn shooed her husband away from the bolts of fabrics before he even had a chance to look. 

“‘You got more than enough at home, you ‘ave. My quilt still ain’t finished.” 

“That’s hardly my fault, blame your son.” 

“You’re the one that refuses ta put ‘im down, Enoch.”

“He needs me, dearest.”

“Ya, like you need anover ‘ole in your ‘ead.”

“Only if you’re the one to put it there.”

The good natured bickering continued as they went about their shopping. 

“We really need five pounds of smoked salmon, do we?” 

“Do we really need more nails, dearest wife?”

Gwyn concedes to his point by adding a thick coil of hemp rope to her basket. Enoch just rolls his eyes. 

“Do you think we should check the post?”

“No.”

“But Gwyn, what if we received a letter?”

“We ‘aven’t. Your mum never writes, she jus turns up.” 

They stopped at the town's boarding house for lunch,their purchases piled at their feet while they spend more time cooing and playing with Percy than eating. A simple privacy spell ensured the babe was fed and shortly after he fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm in need of a beta if anyone is interested!


	3. I Know About Whispers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which eyes wander and tongues wag. A small interlude into mundane thoughts about the strangest couple in the room.

They were the talk of the town, what with their clear lack of morals deviations from the social norms.

Gwyn’s thick hair was loose, spilling down her back in waves, unpinned and unadorned by a bonnet or sun hat. Her hands were uncovered and she was constantly underdressed with no apron or pelerine and a neckline that plunged to dangerous levels, showing off her collar bones. She hardly ever had on stockings. There were even times when she had come into town wearing pants. A temptress she was called, unashamed of her lack of propriety and respect for the way of things. But what else was to be expected? She was foreign.

And that husband of hers. He never made a move to reign in his bride, preferring to tend to their son and peruse the general store for groceries and mutter over bolts of fabric and sniff the herbs at the apothecary. He was clearly half native, with his colouring and unfashionably long hair, but he was literate and spoke better than even the doctor. He ordered book after book, huge quantities of paper and various paints, brushes, pens, and charcoals. He could be seen waiting outside of the blacksmith for his wife, sewing tiny beads onto his sons clothes, or whittling little figures from wood and handing them out to the curious children that were brave enough to approach. The women tittered behind their hands, pretending not to discuss his broad shoulders and finely toned muscles as they passed.

The child was the only normal one in that family. He was such a sweet babe, content to babble at strangers and bless them with a gummy smile. He didn’t cry endlessly like the Martell’s daughter or stare silently like the Howel boy. His chubby cheeks and cheerful demeanor brightened up the market even though he always seemed to have a spider or three crawling over his blankets. One day they’d hear news of baby Percival murdered by a bug bite. It was only a matter of time.

No one could find exactly where they lived and they never invited anyone over, though they were known to accept an invitation to dinner every so often, showing up with offerings of food, tools, and toys for the children, wearing fine silks and expensive looking jewelry. No one would deny that they were well off and very generous.

Their prices for their produce were fair and they often just gave it away! It made more than a few farmers from surrounding towns grumble under their breath about lost business. Perhaps if their own produce was up to par people would buy it.

Still, they were considered incredibly strange at best and deviants of the nastiest kind at worst. Not that either of them seemed to notice the whispers and stares.

They never went to church despite being invited numerous times, in fact they never went within ten feet of it. That didn’t prove that they were demons but normal they most certainly were not.

**Author's Note:**

> Any comments are appreciated!


End file.
